Around Cook County

The Cook County Senior Center has lots of fun planned for July. There will be Grand Portage Casino Express trips on Thursday July 18 and Tuesday, July 30. Transportation is free for those that sign up in advance and $5 for those that don’t. In town pickup is available for a $1 fee.
Those who join the Casino Express receive some free slot play and a coupon for $5 off any entrée in the dining room.
For trip times, stop in or call the Senior Center at (218) 387-2660.

The Grand Marais Garden Club’s 2013 Flower Show will be held Friday, July 19 from noon to 5 p.m. at the Cook County Community Center, 317 W. Fifth St. in Grand Marais.
Featured will be ’50s music and decor which set the mood for the beautiful arrangements of locally grown flowers. Any one interested is encouraged to enter a display. It is not necessary to be a Garden Club member. Children are especially encouraged to enter an exhibit.
The master gardeners will have a special exhibit and video titled Art in the Garden.
Registration for entries is from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at the Community Center the day of the show.
Plants from Garden Club members will also be for sale. Supplement your own garden with selections from the sale.
Refreshments will be served. Admission is free.
For more information contact Sally Berg at (218) 387-3326.

But Landwehr said afterward he does not plan to lift his decision to rescind Rogers' permit to keep tracking collars on bears in the Ely area. He says there's usually no appeal from that kind of decision, but he has decided to let Rogers present his case to an administrative law judge.

The DNR says Rogers' hand-feeding of bears makes them too accustomed to humans. The agency also says Rogers has failed to publish his research.

Rogers denies both claims. He says his research is available to all at www.bear.org.

Call him Bigfoot, Sasquatch or Yeti—just don’t call him welcome on the Gunflint Trail in Grand Marais. Immediately after an anonymous jokester erected two Bigfoot Crossing signs on the Gunflint Trail near Swamper Lake, debate began.
The community was torn—were the signs cute and funny? Or an annoying Wisconsin Dells-like intrusion? Arguments were carried on in coffee shops and on facebook. Opinions were offered stating that the signs were awesome and hilarious, with many folks weighing in with thoughts of who was the model for the Yeti figure. Others sadly stated that it made a mockery of the tranquility and beauty of the Gunflint Trail.
The arguments are moot. The signs are gone. County Highway Engineer David Betts said his crews took the signs down, but had nothing to do with the placement of the Sasquatch signs. Betts said it was not a high priority for the Highway Department to take the signs down. “Frankly, it really wasn’t a big deal,” said Betts.
Before the Highway Department got there two days later, someone had defaced the signs with black spray paint.
Betts said he was more bothered by the person or persons who stole the “Caution—Baby Moose” signs that had been erected in that area. “It’s bad enough they stole the sign, but they also took the barricade, which is actually worth more than the sign.”
Regardless of whether signs are present—watch for baby moose and hairy visitors on the Gunflint!

A potential Cook County housing project has not even gotten to the engineering stages and it is already causing consternation among the Cook County – Grand Marais Economic Development Authority (EDA) board and some community members. At the May EDA meeting, the EDA board heard a tentative proposal from Leah Hall of the Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency for a multi-unit facility on land donated by the EDA, which would provide “fair market housing.” Hall said AEOA would be the developer for the project, putting together the design and the funding package. However, Hall said, the AEOA would not pursue the project if the EDA did not want them to. The development fee would be 10 percent.
At the end of that meeting, the EDA board asked Chair Mark Sandbo to contact Hall to tell her to proceed with planning for a housing project.
At the subsequent June EDA meeting, after its housing administrator, Nancy Grabko of Community Fundraising Solutions, questioned the 10 percent development fee proposed by AEOA, the EDA appeared to reverse its decision to work with AEOA. At that meeting, EDA Chair Sandbo said it was not “a done deal.”

Houghton, MI – On Saturday, July 13, a recreational SCUBA diver exploring the "Kamloops" shipwreck at Isle Royale National Park was fatally injured in a diving accident.

Lloyd W. Krohn, 55, of Wyoming, Minnesota, was diving in a party of three on a charter SCUBA trip to the park operated by Isle Royale Charters, Inc. At approximately 10 a.m., soon after descending to their target depth, his two partners noticed that Krohn was experiencing an unknown difficulty.

They attempted to assist him but were forced to send him to the surface alone after he became unconscious. He was spotted by the boat crew and was brought aboard unresponsive and not breathing.

The victim was declared deceased on scene by ranger-EMT's. Rangers are currently working with the Keweenaw County Medical Examiner to determine a cause of death and to investigate the circumstances of the accident.

The "Kamloops" is considered an expert dive due to the depths involved; most of the wreck lies below 200 feet. It is located approximately 300 feet from the north shore of Isle Royale near Todd Harbor.

The ship, a 250 foot Canadian package freighter, wrecked in a severe storm in December, 1927. The location of the shipwreck was unknown until sport divers located the wreck in 1977.